The Moonflower Vine

by Jetta Carleton

  “You’re just terrible!” said Jessica. They lay under the sheet smothering their laughter in the pillow and trying not to wiggle. Once in a while they poked out their heads to listen. It seemed the murmur would never end in their parents’ room. The moon rose over the orchard, prying into the darkness.

  “I’m scared,” said Jessica.

  “I’m not,” said Mathy.

  After a long time the voices upstairs fell silent. Crickets chirred, leaves rustled, the darkness was loud with all sorts of mysterious noises. At last a long rough familiar sound drew once and back across the soft cacophony, like a dull saw across the grain, and the night seemed still as death.

  “He’s asleep,” said Mathy. “You can go now.”

  Jessica sat bolt upright, clutching the sheet to her collarbone. “I’m not going.”

  “You’ve got to. Be careful, don’t squeak.”

  “He won’t be there, I just know he won’t.”

  “Well, you’ve got to go down and see!”

  “It’s dark down there!” Jessica whimpered.

  “Oh, Jessica!” Mathy said impatiently. “If you’re such a fraidy-cat, I’ll go with you!”

  “You can’t—we’ve only got one head.”

  “I’ll get another one.” Mathy ran to the smokehouse for another crock and arranged it on the pillow. Together they crept out of the yard and took out running through the orchard.

  Jessica’s heart pounded. “I just know he won’t come.”

  “Yes he will.”

  They trotted on between the cherry and peach trees into the apple grove. Ahead lay the strip of open ground dividing orchard from woods. They could see it plainly in the dusty moonlight, and no figure in sight.

  “He didn’t come!” said Jessica.

  “Boo!” said Tom, stepping out from behind a tree.

  “I told you,” said Mathy.

  Jessica squealed and folded her arms across her chest, remembering for the first time that she was in her nightgown.

  “Hi, Jessica.”

  “Hi.” They smiled at each other awkwardly.

  “I sure am glad to see you,” said Tom.

  “I’m glad to see you.”

  “I sure was surprised to get your message.”

  “What message?” said Jessica.

  “Didn’t you send me a message—by Mathy?”

  “Why, no!”

  “She told me you did—she said you wanted me to meet you.”

  “She did? Why, I never! She told me you were the one that wanted me to—Mathy, what do you—Mathy?”

  Mathy had taken to her heels.

  “Come back here!”

  The white nightgown flickered among the trees and vanished.

  “I’m going to shake her teeth out!” said Jessica, turning back to Tom.

  “What for, Jessica? Ain’t you glad we’re here?”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  “I’m glad.” He put his hand on her arm.

  “I better go, Tom.”

  “Not yet, Jessica, you just got here.”

  “I know, but I better get back before Papa finds out I’m gone.”

  “He’s asleep, ain’t he? Won’t Mathy keep watch?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Stay, Jessica. Just for a minute?”

  “Well…” The air was soft and the night so pretty (an old moon…pale silvery light dusting the orchard) and she had so longed to see him.

  “Jessica?” he said, moving closer.

  “Don’t.”

  “You ain’t afraid, are you?”

  “No.”

  “I won’t do nothin’ to hurt you.”

  “I know that.”

  “I won’t even touch you if you don’t want me to…. Do you want me to, Jessica?”

  “I don’t know.” She hung her head, and they stood like this for a moment.

  “I’m goin’ away before long, Jessica.”

  “You are?” she said, looking up. “Clear away?”

  “Reckon I got to. I been over at Latham’s ever since I left here, but he won’t need me no more after this week.”

  “Where are you planning to go, Tom?”

  “Out west, I reckon, out to my uncle’s.”

  “Clear out there!”

  “I got to go somewhere.”

  “Can’t you stay around somewhere closer?”

  “What for? Ain’t nothin’ to stay around here for. Except you…. Jessica?”

  “What?”

  These was a long pause. “I don’t guess I’ll git to see you no more. Will I?”

  “I don’t know, Tom.”

  “Don’t reckon your Pa would ever let me come on the place again.”

  “Not unless—he changes his mind.”

  “I got a picture of him doin’ that!” He picked up a little apple, bounced it in his hand and tossed it away. “I reckon this is about the last chance we got, ain’t it, to be together.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Well, then…We ought to make the most of it, oughtn’t we?”

  Her heart set up a hideous pounding.

  “Jessica?” he said, laying his hand on her arm.

  “I’m afraid,” she said in a small voice.

  “Not of me. Please, Jessica. Jessica—I love y’.”

  “Do you?” she cried.

  “Sure.”

  “You do, really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh, Tom—I love you!” With a little cry she put her arms around him and married him in her heart.

  9

  Daylight, however, put a different complexion on it.

  Though her absence had not been discovered (Mathy kept faithful watch), her escapade could still proclaim itself, and in a most horrific way. A few days later, when her body reassured her, she took some comfort. But only momentarily. Discovered or not, she had broken a Commandment, of all Commandments the most awesome—not the greatest, according to the Bible, but certainly the greatest to her mother. Jessica saw the Commandments as ten marble slabs, old tombstones in an old graveyard, sprouting from the grass in a neat white row. When one fell, all the others toppled with it. Day after day she stood in the wreckage of the Decalogue and felt herself damned. Tom was her only refuge and salvation.

  “I’ve got to see him,” she said to Mathy, “I’ve just got to! He’s got to come back.”

  “He will.”

  “I don’t know when.”

  “Maybe on his way back from Kansas.”

  “But that’s a long time. Maybe he’ll stay out there.”

  “I told you you should have gone with him!” Mathy said.

  Jessica tried to explain that you can’t just go off like that, in your nightgown. “Anyway, he didn’t ask me,” she said woefully.

  “He’ll come back. Don’t worry, Jessica.”

  Mathy tried hard to distract her. Every day she brought little gifts: bouquets of grasses, the blue half shell of a robin’s egg, a long brown thorn as glossy as polished wood, an oriole’s abandoned nest (brought down with some difficulty from a high branch). She invited Jessica to her secret cave above the creek. Jessica was grateful, but nothing helped very much.

  One night after everyone else was asleep, Mathy persuaded her to go down to the woods. “I’ve got a surprise,” she said. They slipped out of the yard and down through the pasture, two small ghosts in bare feet and long white gowns. The moon had not yet come up. Sometimes Jessica could barely make out Mathy’s figure on the path ahead. Now and then she stumbled, trying to keep up. Mathy flitted through the darkness, skimming easily over a path whose every bump and turn her feet had memorized. They passed through the walnut grove to the foot of the long slope. There they turned, taking an old road that led into the woods.

  “Where are you?” Jessica called softly. “I can’t see.”

  “Here—this way.”

  Jessica felt her way in the direction of the voice and rounded a bend in the road. There before her, in a black hollow un
der the bluff, thousands of tiny lights pricked the darkness.

  “Here it is!” cried Mathy. “All the lightning bugs in the world!”

  The darkness was alive with them—a great swarm, a freshet, an explosion of fireflies. They pulsed and swam, floated and fell, and rose as high as the treetops. The air was filled with their delicate acrid insect odor.

  Mathy jigged with delight, beating her hard little feet on the ground. “They stayed for you, Jessica, they waited!” She plunged in with her arms outstretched. “Come on, Jessica! Dance!” Around and around she went, her joy like a whirlpool reaching out to take Jessica in.

  “Oh, Jessica—” Mathy stopped abruptly. “Don’t you like it?”

  “Oh, yes, I do!”

  “Isn’t it pretty?”

  “It is—it’s beautiful!”

  “I thought it would cheer you up.” Mathy’s voice brimmed with disappointment.

  “It does, honey! Sort of—I mean—why, it’s beautiful!”

  Mathy walked back, and they stood watching the fireflies. “I guess you want to see Tom awful bad,” she said. After a moment they started back to the house.

  10

  Jessica woke up on Sunday morning with an aching head. Dressing for church, she felt worse by the minute. Her stomach was queasy, and she felt feverish. After some consultation between Matthew and Callie, it was decided that the girls should stay home.

  “What’s the matter with her?” said Matthew.

  “She’s just got a little upset stomach,” said Callie.

  “You don’t think—She and that boy couldn’t have—”

  “No,” Callie said firmly. “They couldn’t. I know for sure.”

  “I only wondered. What I saw out by the gate that night was enough to make you suspicious.”

  “There’s nothing the matter with her except what’s supposed to be…I reckon you kissed me a time or two before we was married.” Matthew made no comment. “I still think you were a little hard on her. And on him, too. I reckon he didn’t mean any real harm.”

  “I could hardly let him stay here after that!”

  “I guess not. But I’m glad Jake let him work over there awhile, so he didn’t go hungry.”

  “You think she knows he’s there?”

  “I doubt it. Anyway, he’s gone by this time. Fanny told me he was going out to Kansas.”

  “Good riddance,” said Matthew.

  Callie put on her hat. “For a little I’d stay home myself this morning. It’s so hot, and I’ve got a kind of headache. But I guess I’d better go.”

  Leonie was sulking in the parlor. “Who’s going to play for Sunday School, I’d like to know?”

  “I reckon they’ll find somebody,” said Callie. “That little Barrow girl, maybe. She takes lessons. Be nice to let her have a chance at it once in a while.”

  Leonie stomped on the loud petal and banged the piano keys.

  “Now, missy, you straighten up, do you hear?”

  “Why can’t Mathy stay? She and Jessica have so much business together.”

  “She’s staying.”

  “By herself, I mean.”

  “I want you to stay, too. And you just get that look off your face. Mama’s sorry you can’t go, but it can’t be helped this time. Mathy, you behave yourself and don’t go running off.”

  Matthew and Callie drove away. Jessica lay upstairs in her petticoat with a wet washrag on her head and listened to the lonely sound of the locusts. Leonie was playing the piano. After a bit Jessica heard her go to the door and call Mathy. She called out the front and out back and came to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Is Mathy up there with you?”

  “No.”

  “Where’d she go, the little brat!” She yelled again a time or two and went back to the piano.

  Jessica lay back with her eyes closed. A few moments later Mathy tiptoed in. “Sh!” She put her finger to her lips and crept cautiously across the room. “Tom’s here!” she whispered.

  Jessica jumped up, letting the washrag fall to the floor. “Where?”

  “Down in the orchard.”

  “What’ll I do—what about Leonie?”

  “You wait here—don’t go downstairs till I tell you to.” She crept back down without a sound. Then the back door slammed.

  “Mathy?” said Leonie.

  “What?”

  “Where have you been? I’ve been yelling at you.”

  “I was outdoors.”

  “Where outdoors? Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “I’m going to tell Mama on you.”

  “Tell.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “Out to the well. I’m going to pump a bucket of water. Want a fresh drink?”

  “I guess so.”

  Jessica began to dress, barely able to manage her buttons. She brushed her hair and tied it up with a fresh ribbon, splashed cold water in her face, and pinched her cheeks to give them some color. Still the signal hadn’t come. Leonie went on playing. Jessica sat trembling on the edge of the bed. Now and then her glance strayed to the picture of the girl and the cross and she turned away with a shudder. Down in the kitchen the clock struck eleven.

  Leonie finished the song she was playing. Jessica heard her go out the back door and across the yard. A moment later there was a loud thud, a scuffling noise, and a banging of fists, and Leonie’s voice rose in muffled fury. The back door slammed again and Mathy dashed up the stairs. “Come on! I locked her in the toilet!”

  “She’ll die!” squealed Jessica. “She’ll knock the door down!”

  “No, she won’t—I put a board against it. She won’t get out till I let her out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Come on, Jessica!”

  She grabbed Jessica by the hand and dragged her pellmell down the stairs. They raced through the orchard, Mathy two jumps in the lead. “Tom?” she called as they reached the bottom of the orchard. “We’re here—it’s safe!”

  Tom peered cautiously around a tree. “Hi,” he said, grinning.

  “You came back!” cried Jessica.

  “Yeah,” he said. “How are y’, Jessica?”

  “I’m fine!”

  “Are you—all right?”

  “I’m fine, Tom! Really!”

  “I’m sure glad to hear that!” He hesitated, still with the foolish grin on his face. “Mathy said you wanted to see me.”

  “I went and got him,” said Mathy.

  Jessica turned slowly, her smile fading. “You did?”

  “I thought maybe he was still over at Latham’s, so I went and looked.”

  Jessica turned back to Tom. “You’re still there? I thought you were going to Kansas.”

  “I was—I ain’t left yet.”

  “Oh.”

  “Gee, I—sure am glad you sent for me. I been wonderin’—”

  “I didn’t send for you,” Jessica said quietly. “I didn’t know Mathy was going.”

  “She didn’t, Tom,” said Mathy. “She didn’t send me—I just told you that.”

  Tom laughed uncertainly. “Well—I reckon it don’t matter what she said. I’m glad to see you anyway.”

  “Are you?” said Jessica.

  “Sure.”

  “Then why didn’t you come back last week, Tom?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Without having to be brought?”

  “Gosh, Jessica, I wasn’t sure—I didn’t know if you’d have the nerve to sneak out again.”

  “I would have come.”

  “I didn’t know that. Don’t be mad, Jessica.”

  “I’m not mad!” she said, blinking back the tears.

  “Oh, stop fussing about it,” said Mathy. “There isn’t time. Hurry up and decide.”

  “Decide what?” said Tom.

  “About getting married.”

  “Married!”

  “You’re going to, aren’t you?”

  “Well,
I— My gosh! I reckon we never got that far, did we, Jessica?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Mathy said, “Well, you like each other. I just thought—”

  “I don’t know much about gittin’ married!” said Tom.

  “You just go to the preacher,” said Mathy.

  “I don’t guess it’s as easy as all that.”

  “Why not?”

  “A feller’s got to have something to git married with.”

  “You mean money?”

  “Yeah!” said Tom. “And a job and a house to live in.”

  “Oh, who needs a house!”

  “Married folks do, that’s who. You got to have a place to live.”

  “Can’t you live with your folks?”

  “Mathy, hush talking like that!” said Jessica. “We can’t get married—Papa wouldn’t let us.”

  “Don’t tell him,” said Mathy. “Just do it. Elope!”

  “Oh, Mathy, hush that!” Jessica giggled.

  “Would you be scared to?” said Mathy. “Would you, Tom?”

  “I don’t reckon I’d be scared, but—”

  “Don’t you want to get married?” said Mathy.

  “I hadn’t thought much about it.”

  “I think about it,” she said. “I’d just love to get married. I think it would be fun!”

  “Sure!” he said with a scornful laugh.

  “I think so, too,” said Jessica softly. “Tom? I could go with you to Kansas. I’d go anywhere you want to go and do what you said—I wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  Tom stared at her in alarm. “I ain’t got much money, Jessica.”

  “I don’t mind that.”

  “Or no job or nothin’!”

  “I don’t care if we have to stay with your folks awhile—they sound real nice.”

  “Well, Jehosaphat! I ain’t got enough money to get us there!”

  “You can use the egg money,” said Mathy. “I’ll get it for you.”

  “That’s stealin’,” said Tom.

  “Not if you pay it back.”

  “We could pay it back,” said Jessica.

  Tom backed up against a tree, his shirt damp with sweat. “I don’t know nothin’ about elopin’!”

  “You catch a train,” said Mathy.